


nothing here but light

by throughfire



Series: Buck and Eddie [6]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23160967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughfire/pseuds/throughfire
Summary: Every truth previously known to man has suddenly been uprooted and thrown away, only to be replaced with the fact that Evan Buckley is in love, has been in love, has lacked the proper amount of self-awareness to realize that he’s been in love all along, with Eddie Diaz.Or: yet another story about two idiots realizing their feelings for each other, and acting on them.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: Buck and Eddie [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630543
Comments: 46
Kudos: 538





	nothing here but light

**Author's Note:**

> I started out writing this because I wanted to write some smut for a change, but I ended up getting so invested in Buck's emotions along the way that my entire mood changed and in the end I couldn't tap into the right mental state for the smut anymore SO HERE WE GO, the same story written by the same not-at-all-author a SIXTH TIME *throws confetti*
> 
> If you've read the past five fics in this series I'M SORRY i promise not to post a fic about buck and eddie ever again okay bye

It’s a Friday evening. Buck was supposed to be at a birthday party forty-five minutes ago, and his feet are cold. One of the windows in his bedroom is open and the evening air is chilly where it has climbed in and is crawling along the floor, teasing his toes as though trying to get them to move. Trying to move _him_.

If he’d left his home when he was supposed to, he’d be drinking a beer right now. He’d be eating cake and laughing with friends that feel more like family these days, would be teasing his sister and gravitating towards Eddie’s side despite the past twenty-four hours they’ve spent together on a shift.

He’s still stood in his silent bedroom, though, wearing nothing but sweatpants and contemplating his open closet with betrayal oozing out of his chest in painful swells of disbelief.

It has not told him before. It has known _all along_ , but decided not to tell him until tonight as though it is a friendly reminder of something mundane rather than a life-altering revelation of a lifetime being spelled out by rows of shirts that just aren’t good enough.

 _You do not own clothes that will look good enough on you that he’ll want to undress you,_ the closet decided to tell him twenty minutes ago, and now the entire world feels like a different place where it presses against him. Every truth previously known to man has suddenly been uprooted and thrown away, only to be replaced with the fact that Evan Buckley is in love, has been in love, has lacked the proper amount of self-awareness to realize that he’s been in love all along, with Eddie Diaz.

He cannot go to a party that Eddie will be at and pretend not to be in love with him. He doesn’t know how to wipe this realization off his skin, how to pack it back inside of his heart where it previously laid so quietly, so unquestionable that he never even addressed it before tonight.

Now that he finally _has_ acknowledged it, he can’t breathe quite right. It is suddenly all he knows, all he is, all he can be. He has an overwhelming urge to shout it, to tell the world that it is true, that these freshly growing rumours are actually facts that need to be nourished – that need to be cared for because he does not know how to care for himself, how to keep himself thriving when he can’t let Eddie know about it.

And he can’t. Can absolutely not put this on Eddie, can’t let the other man deal with this as well. Eddie is already too strong, too resilient in situations he shouldn’t ever have to bounce back from or keep his head high in. Buck isn’t supposed to be another thing for Eddie to worry about; he’s supposed to be a safe harbour, a resting place and someone Eddie can let his guards down in front of.

Buck is staying home tonight, alone with his realization. To relearn his heart. To figure out when it fell and how it could do so without telling him about it, and how Eddie could charm him so thoroughly in such a quiet, comfortable manner that was so natural, so smooth, that Buck didn’t even notice that he had changed.

He blinks, then, at the closet and at his own thoughts. He wiggles his toes against the cool floorboards, and tries to take inventory of himself, of every part of him, to figure out whether he really is all that different.

He feels the same way he’s always done, though more defined, as though his contours have been stained with splashes of another person to make him brighter, more vibrant and solid in his place. Evan Buckley: enhanced. Him, but even better.

It’s a comfortable realization to land in. He feels welcome in it. Comfortable, as though he belongs within it. His heart is already here, has probably known since the beginning, but Buck’s not used to listening to it. He always lets it do its own thing and trusts its judgement. Suddenly being in tune with it – while scary as hell – feels quite right.

Loving Eddie feels as natural as his decision to become a firefighter did, and just as important. He won’t take it away from himself. Even if he _did_ know how to wipe his newly labelled feelings off of his skin he’d still have to rip them out of his heart in order to be restored to some former non-glory of a man who never really felt anything, and he doesn’t want to do that. Doesn’t want to be the man he was before he met Eddie, the one who ripped out the pain of failed love out of his heart in order to heal and move on in an attempt to get better.

It never worked – running away from emotion never does – and it won’t do so this time either.

Loving Eddie, even unknowingly, has already made him a better man, has allowed him to mature and grow in ways he never thought he was capable of. Why would he want to walk away from that – trade in the pain of being in love for an unaffected heart that will keep him stomping in the same spot for the rest of his life while the world evolves and finds happiness around him?

He sighs. A car horn wails somewhere outside, shrill where it climbs after the breeze into his bedroom. He takes a step back, and turns to gaze at the world outside, nodding in agreement with it because it’s right: he’ll _have_ to let Eddie know. Buck won’t be able to keep it silent, anyway. He won’t be able to hide it from himself or from Eddie. Besides, Eddie deserves to know. He deserves a friendship between them that is completely transparent.

The world is more insistent than that, though. It wants more from him than a promise to come clean. It inflicts his calm with the sound of his front door opening, with the jangle of keys and heavy steps falling across his floor downstairs. The steps trail around the area, from kitchen to living space and back to the bottom of the staircase, then up it.

Eddie reaches the top with determined strides. There is tension in his posture and well-contained worry stored in muscle and bone, but the concern is still present and rather frantic where it frames his eyes. When his gaze finally lands on Buck it searches the length of him insistently; scans the bare torso for visible damage, for blood or bruises or other signs of wrongness.

When he finds nothing amiss, he flicks his gaze back up to meet Buck’s, and an ocean of time and tension seeps in between them before Eddie takes a breath, and visibly deflates.

“Oh,” he says, and leans back against the railing of the staircase. He nods to himself, crosses his arms over his chest and seemingly settles into the room, the situation.

“ _Oh_ ,” Buck repeats. His voice sounds like it’s on the verge of hysteria even to his own ears, high-pitched and sprinting through the air as though it’s desperate to get away from him, ashamed of him for taking so long to figure his own heart out. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

It’s an accusation thrown at someone who doesn’t even know what’s going on; who cannot be blamed for the way Buck feels for him. Eddie is an easy target, though. He’s someone other than Buck himself to throw emotions at, and one more emotion aimed Buck’s way would surely break him, split him open and bleed him dry.

Eddie simply shrugs in response, all of him perfectly blank apart from his eyes. They’re brown, beautiful, and for some reason dancing with amusement. “I thought something had happened to you, that that’s why you were late for the party.”

“It _has_.”

“I know,” Eddie says. “But I meant physically.”

“You don’t _know_.”

Eddie tilts his head. Considers Buck for a moment, with the gaze of a grown-up who is playing along with a child who thinks that they have invented the rules of a century-old game that the rest of humanity already knows. Concedes, “Okay.”

It takes Buck back a little, makes him bite back any instinctive urge to snipe at Eddie, to unravel the moment, because he wants to get a proper hold of it first, to understand it and Eddie’s behaviour within it. Buck’s acting like a maniac and Eddie’s taking it, letting him behave like an asshole for no reason because he’s kind like that; because he can probably sense that this goes deeper than childish comebacks.

“You look good,” his mouth offers, ripping a slice of truth from the wall of his chest. “Nice shirt. It suits you.”

“Thanks, man.”

It’s such a casual answer. Eddie’s so unaffected by the changes that Buck’s entire world has gone through this evening even though he embodies the very centre of it, and Buck doesn’t _understand_.

He bristles. Unravels the moment after all; unravels the room and himself in an instant because he just can’t contain anything within himself, he never could. He has never been the kind of person who can sort his feelings out, who can compartmentalize, hide or highlight. Everything he feels is muddled and loud and he does not know how not to act on it when it makes itself know to him, when it spells itself out where it was once resting so quietly, so easily.

“I’m in love with you,” he says slowly, suddenly quiet. It’s a secret murmured into the air, sneaking into the world as not to disturb it, as though it is a bomb that could explode at any moment. It’s something only Eddie has the ability to either set off or disarm, and Buck hates that. Hates knowing that Eddie is the kind of man who’ll always throw himself in harm’s way if it means saving someone else.

Eddie blinks slowly, smiles softly. Says, “I know.”

They are those same words uttered again. _I know._ Though Buck understands them now – taps into the underlying weight that is nestled in them, the truth with which they are spoken.

“You do,” he realizes, wringing trembling hands together. “You know. For how long?”

“Months,” Eddie shrugs, lifting a hand to his face and dragging it along his jawline. The room’s so quiet that Buck can hear the scratch of stubble against skin and he has to fight not to shiver in response. “Even longer on my part. It took me a while to see that you felt the same way, to have the guts to believe it, that life could be that good.”

Words strike against Buck’s ribcage; hope kindles behind his breastbone. He takes a step forward, reaches a hand out between them to bridge the distance faster, but stops. Halted by confusion.

“Why are you so calm about this?” he asks.

“I’ve had time,” Eddie hums. “What’s there to panic about?”

Buck falls apart once more; shatters into pieces and does so recklessly. He is too consumed by this new wave of unrelenting emotion to consider anything else, to prepare for an aftermath where everything he feels is suddenly sprayed invisibly all over the walls of his bedroom where Eddie will be able to trace it with curious fingertips and prod at it as though poking something dead on the ground in search for signs of life.

“ _Everything_ ,” he says. He starts pacing, moving, shedding pieces of his heart with every spoken word. “I’m not good at this. My track record with love is _horrendous_. I always get it wrong, Eddie, and I can’t get this wrong, not when it’s you. I can’t fuck us up, can’t lose you or Chris, we can’t—”

He cuts himself off. Turns around, and realizes that Eddie – in the background of that loud, vibrant storm of a breakdown – calmly has picked up every little piece in silence and is holding them all safe within himself where they can’t bleed out. It’s Buck in there, mirrored in that steady, kind and patient gaze that stares back at him. Every erratic, loud and emotional piece of him is kept safe in Eddie’s heart and roaming free in there, because Eddie never stops him. Eddie never tells him to be something he’s not – he’s too kind for that, too warm and too willing to adapt to everything he carefully choses to let inside of his walls.

Buck didn’t know the meaning of the word safety until he met Eddie, until Eddie came along and swept him up in secret; never said a word but just took Buck in without being asked to do so or demanding anything in return.

 _Of course_ Eddie knew before Buck did. Eddie carried parts of Buck, he must have felt how heavy they were with want and affection. Buck is an idiot for never questioning it; for not noticing how pieces of himself were stolen and replaced with parts of Eddie so smoothly, so perfectly.

“I love you,” is what Eddie says in response. Easy as that, the truth spoken into the world to restore it, to heal everything once split open. “I loved you long before I realized I wanted to kiss you between the eyebrows every time you’re confused, before I wanted to peel you out of your uniform and kiss every inch of you, before kissing you was all I could think about at night. And what that means is that I won’t ever stop. Won’t let you slip away from me or Chris. You’re too important to us both for that to ever happen. And the Buck that became my best friend days into knowing me would never let that happen either.”

It’s true. Buck knows it all the way from his cold toes to the top of his head, all of him shaking with certainty. So he moves forward again, finally closing that distance between them. Eddie welcomes him; presses warm hands to Buck’s bare sides as soon as they can reach him, and draws him in close.

He’s smiling so bright that his eyes shine with happiness, smiling like that because of _Buck_.

Buck reaches up to touch that smile with his thumb, to feel it against his own skin, before he settles the hand against Eddie’s jaw. The other one slips up to the back of Eddie’s neck where it can just hold on, hold Eddie close.

“You could have told me ages ago, you know.”

Eddie breathes out amusement, warm across Buck’s face. “I couldn’t find the right words.”

“A kiss would have worked fine,” Buck tells him. “I’d have figured it out eventually.”

A raised eyebrow, a fond tilt to that smile; “In front of everyone?”

“In front of the entire world,” Buck suggests, brushing the tip of his nose against Eddie’s for emphasis, for another point of contact. “It deserves to know.”

Eddie kisses him, then. Just a tilt of his face and then he’s there; their noses still brushing while his mouth captures Buck’s softly. A curious hello, a gentle beginning of something that feels so grand that Buck struggles to breathe through it. He feels more fragile than ever, than he’s ever truly let himself be before, because this is Eddie kissing him. Eddie’s hands on his sides, holding all of him together. They’re going to be okay.

He curls his fingers in the hair at the nape of Eddie’s neck and tugs until it makes Eddie’s mouth open, licks along Eddie’s lower lip and then further, desperate for a proper taste. He’s never felt so hungry before, so starved for something, so hollow. Eddie tastes of coffee and hints of dark chocolate and his mouth is so warm, so soft. He feels perfect against Buck, under Buck’s touch, as though he’s been missing from there all along.

Eddie’s palms wander, too. They’re wide and strong, a bit rough where they drive Buck mad with their slow exploration of skin and muscle. He’s dragging them to Buck’s lower back, now, chasing shivers out of Buck’s very core, and all Buck can do is hold on, lean in, and push deeper.

He lets his free hand slip down to explore the pulse point in Eddie’s neck and commits the thudding there to memory, lets their lips work against each other in that very rhythm because it’s fitting. The soundtrack of them, their bodies together.

He still can’t breathe; he doesn’t think he’ll ever need to again.

Eddie’s fingers are still moving over Buck’s back. They’re dipping down beneath the waistband of Buck’s sweatpants, now, and then he’s pressing his palms to the curve of Buck’s ass and pulling him even closer. Making Buck moan; making the hunger boil fiercely beneath Buck’s skin.

There’s heat in his stomach, too, coiling around his spine and making it bend slightly, making his hips curve in towards Eddie’s in a delicious point of pressure and friction. He makes a noise, soft and fragile in the back of his throat, and has to tilt his face away from Eddie’s in a useless attempt to catch his breath after all.

Eddie kisses his cheek, his jaw, his neck. His teeth are sharp and insistent, ripping any air apart before it reaches Buck’s lungs simply by grazing Buck’s skin, and Buck just keeps fumbling. He’s breathless, losing his grip. His hands fall to Eddie’s chest and they curl in the fabric there – fight blindly with it in attempt to get it out of his way. The fabric doesn’t budge, though, it just wraps itself harder around his fingers and leaves his hand stuck there.

He makes another noise, then, though out of frustration this time, and reluctantly has to open his eyes and push his face away from the side of Eddie’s just to see what the hell he’s doing, how he’s supposed to get to bare skin and warmth.

He tries to reason with the fabric again, tries to wield past the clouds of arousal in his mind and the feeling of Eddie’s mouth against his clavicle, just to glare at the fabric – make it understand. His fingers just keep trembling, though, refusing to cooperate.

“Fuck this,” he mumbles, tugging uselessly. “Fuck fuck _fuck_ this, why are you wearing it, what _is_ this.”

“Buttons, Buck,” Eddie murmurs back at him. His voice is rough and his breathing’s laboured, but he’s still calm. Unperturbed by Buck’s struggle. Ever so patient. “You said you liked it.”

“I’d like it _off_ now,” Buck mutters. “I’m allowed to change my mind about things. _Fuck_.”

“What are you going to do, rip it open?”

Buck can feel his eyes widening, his heart lurching with hunger as he snaps his head up. “Can I?”

Eddie tilts his head back then, leaving Buck’s neck cold and lonely. His gaze is warm when it locks with Buck’s; want pooled in the middle of all that brown and aimed right at Buck in a way that makes Buck feel like his skin’s on fire.

“You can do whatever you want,” Eddie tells him. It’s soft. Earnest. He’s not allowing anything, he’s simply reminding Buck of what’s possible, saying: _the world is yours. I am yours, here, to devour. You can have me. You can have anything you want._ “I’ll have to borrow something of yours to wear on my way home, though.”

He says it like an afterthought, light and easy, but it hits heavily. Lands like another log to spur on the fire in Buck’s stomach. The thought of Eddie in Buck’s clothes, in Buck’s scent, walking out of here with traces of Buck all over him, is overwhelming in the best possible way. If Eddie has to leave, it has to be that way. If he has to go, Buck wants to go with him.

He sucks in a breath, and determinedly pulls buttons apart from their threads. Presses starved fingers to warm flesh and surges up for another kiss, tired of wasting time.

Eddie laughs at him, into the kiss. It tastes of happiness, of warmth, of home.


End file.
